I woke up to what I thought was a joke when I read that England lost the 2018 bid to Russia and USA lost the 2022 bid to Qatar, huge shocker to how to describe the magnitude of this lopsided decision that FIFA decided to make. Now before I go any further I want to say congratulations to both Russia and Qatar respectively as they are 2 new countries to host a World Cup and I wish them all the best when they do host.
The England Snub: As a fan I'm dumbfounded by the committees decision this time around to snub the country with the biggest league in the world that can easily serve the World Cup in one city alone(probably) and give it to a country where the majority of the fields are on field TURF because of the countries weather situation year round. Anytime you don't play the beautiful game on a natural surface players, coaches, higher ups whine about games being played on turf and many FIFA officials have sounded off on turf fields condeming it yet this governing body just awarded a world cup to Russia where they use field turf, very hypocritical on FIFA's part here.
The USA snub: since the 94 world cup there has been 2 WC's in Europe(98 France, 06 Germany), Asia(02 Japan/South Korea), Africa(2010 South Africa), South America(2014 Brazil) and now Europe again(Russia 2018). the only region to have not hosted a World cup is the Oceania region in which Australia/New Zealand bid should have been awarded if you wanted to "go to new areas", there is no other country in the Concacaf region ready to be a host for the world cup than the USA. Canada has stadiums but would probably have to build more stadiums to reach FIFA standards, Mexico is fighting a drug war at the moment and would be a red flag from hosting and any country from Central America or the Carribean would have to combine with another country in the region just to host a World Cup.
Undermining Qatar: FIFA about 3 weeks after the World Cup selection decided that because of the triple digit summers in Qatar that they want to schedule the 2022 World Cup during the first two months of that year because of cooler temperatures, the only problem is figuring out how to schedule around the Winter Season Club Futbol scheduling which a tweak in their schedule could cost leagues, clubs millions(possibly). A week after announcing that they would look into a Winter World Cup they suggested that Qatar SHOULD think about hosting that same World Cup with another country, maybe i'm the only one thinking this but doesn't it seem that FIFA is taking digs at their own selection? FIFA took a lot of heat after their selections, and they keep on giving critics, onlookers, fans reasons to question their motives for what ever they decide to announce. the real question people are asking is when will there be a change at the top of the organization? only time will tell i suppose.
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